Creative contrasts abound in the Tuxedo Park, New York home Babba Rivera shares with her husband Carl, their daughters, and Boston Terrier Blu. It’s where the beauty entrepreneur balances motherhood with running her hair care brand Ceremonia, and where her Latina heritage sits side by side with her Swedish sensibility. As she divides her time between a Brooklyn apartment and village life in Hudson Valley, Babba fills the bright yet considered spaces she has created with life, work, and pleasure.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m a Swedish Latina living in New York. I grew up in the south of Sweden in a typical immigrant household where we had salsa on repeat blasting out of the speaker and unannounced guests and family members constantly stopping by. 

Today, I split my time between our Brooklyn apartment and our house here in Tuxedo Park, which has more or less become our main residence since the pandemic. I’m also the mother of four beautiful girls. Around the time we were welcoming our first baby, in the strange year that was 2020, I also launched my own beauty company. I’m the founder and CEO of clean hair care brand Ceremonia, inspired by my Latinx heritage and the rituals I grew up with. 

What inspired you to create Ceremonia?

Growing up as a Latin American immigrant in a homogenous country like Sweden, I never found myself represented in media and the products I consumed—especially in beauty. In the US, I witnessed a void of Latinx representation in almost every aspect of my life: professionally, in the media, within the brands I consumed, and not to mention as role models for entrepreneurship. I began to feel a strong sense of responsibility to propel change.

Ceremonia was born out of the desire to celebrate the richness of Latin culture while highlighting the next generation of Latinx. Inspired by the rituals I grew up with and powered by the superfruits and plants native to the Latin American region, Ceremonia pushes the boundaries of what clean hair care can be—while celebrating and creating representation of a culture that is often overlooked in the beauty space.

With Ceremonia, I also hope to inspire and pave the way for more Latinx founders and businesses to follow suit and take up space on the world stage.

How does your dining space cater to bringing people together?

The dining room is equally nice during the day as it is in the evening. The Cesca Chairs are so comfortable that I sometimes use the room as a co-working area for team offsites. I’ve hosted our PR agency, my investors, and my leadership team for workshops and dinner parties here, and I even hosted our external community of Ceremonia for a Friendsgiving brunch. The space is airy yet tight, which I like. The green walls and natural carpet bring a sense of lightness, but the table is quite narrow, which gives you a feeling of closeness when seated around it. I don’t like it when tables are so big that you’re only able to talk to the person right next to you. An ideal dinner party should allow for group conversations to flow and a narrower table design brings people closer together.

How has your Swedish and Latinx heritage influenced your home design?

We love to mix our two cultures. Since both my husband and I grew up in Scandinavia, a lot of our design references naturally lean more Scandinavian. But when it comes to art and other details, I love to incorporate vibrant elements of Latin culture. We are always on the lookout for emerging Latinx artists to support. A recent addition to the dining room is a large art piece from Korean-Mexican artist Monica Kim Garza, which adds a nice contrast to the room.

How did you find the archival Knoll Stephens Chair? What struck you about it?

My husband and I spent every evening during Covid searching vintage furniture sites for things to decorate our house, which we bought during the pandemic while I was pregnant. We wanted to add texture to the cigar room and fill it with furniture to make it really cozy. We were pleasantly surprised when we found the Knoll Stephens Chairs through a vintage dealer on Etsy with the perfect blue velvet upholstery. The fact that they fit the space so perfectly size-wise was just too good to be true! It was important to us to obtain a mix between old and new, and these chairs added the final touch to the cigar room.